Winter Caravan News

The Nats today unveiled the full schedule schedule for their Winter Caravan, so I'll post it below. You can also read the release here. The full proceedings run from Thursday, Jan. 22, through Monday, Jan. 26. Among those faces you'll be seeing, if you desire to attend the right events: Manny Acta, John Lannan, Scott Olsen, Josh Willingham, Ryan Zimmerman, Charlie Slowes and, um, David Gregory. Among those you won't be seeing: George Stephanopoulos, Levale Speigner, Nook Logan, Mark Teixeira.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, Elijah Dukes and his ex-wife are awaiting a court order in her motion to have him pay $57,000 in back child support by next Friday or face jail time.

The two sides were in a Tampa-area court yesterday. Dukes, who has seemingly stayed out of trouble lately, was once accused by NiShea Dukes of coming to the middle school where she worked and threatening to kill her.

So, only Acta and Hanrahan for Martinsburg,WV on the 22nd!?!? Why bother? I guess I won't be calling in sick to work that day after all. Attention Nats FO: If you are going to do something like this don't do it half a$$ed!

"The major leagues isn't some experimental training ground. Players are supposed to have a pretty good idea of how to succeed by the time they get there. As was said before, Balester and Martis need a minimum of a year in AAA. Say with Martis - he has some major league pitches, but he doesn't have any idea how to use them consistently. If you only throw them for strikes half the time, a big league hitter will just wait for something that's not only over the plate, but in his zone. There's no way, imo that Balester deserving a starting spot is nothing more than an experiment, because in the 4th and 5th innings, he fell off a cliff - which is exactly what inexperienced pitchers do - they throw the kitchen sink at the hitters until their arm is shot and everything starts hanging or sailing. It's pretty obvious that he has a couple of big league pitches, but so do a lot of guys, and getting knocked out in the 4th-5th inning every start with 100 pitches doesn't help anybody's development. That's the big myth for some people - is that any major league experience is better than minor league experience, because it helps 'devlopment'. "

I don't follow your logic here. Sounds like you're saying that these young pitchers need to learn how to pitch rather than just throw, because if they don't then big league hitters will eat them up. This implies that minor league hitters would not eat them up if they haven't learned that, making it a safe environment in which to learn. But if that's the case, how does a pitcher learn how to pitch and not just throw in the minors if the hitters there don't force him to do that because he can succeed there without doing it? In other words, the pitcher ultimately must learn this in the majors, it seems to me, unless it's something he comes by naturally. Wouldn't you agree? How is a pitcher really going to learn how to get big league hitters out on a consistent basis if he never faces any big league hitters?

If the Nationals had a deeper big league staff, it would allow them to ease the young pitchers into the majors a little less suddenly, I'll grant you that. But ultimately the young pitchers will either learn how to pitch or they won't, and they'll have to do it in the big leagues. It may be a painful process for some of them, but there's really no way around it.

I think these caravan stops are going to be the sorriest events you will ever see. Maybe there are a lot of kids out there who dont care that this team blows and can still get excited... Who in their right mind can possibly feign enthusiasm for these events? What is there to be excited about?

I have a feeling something big is going to happen soon. I'm not usually this optimistic, but Jimbo typically works quietly (think Soriano deal). I know it sounds silly, but I'm feeling a power-lefty-1B bat and it's not Dunn. Bring us Fielder or Gonzalez, Jimbo.

I hear ya jctichen, I have that feeling too, on second thought I get that feeling everyday around noon and then I run to the the head about 5 minutes later and it goes down the drain.

Seriously nothing is gonna happen, this essentially is gonna be another "wait till next year" season. Hope I'm wrong, but then I put down a grand on CitiGroup last month based on a hunch and I've been rewarded with a total meltdown 30 days later, there goes my ST money!

"As President-elect Barack Obama and his family settle into Washington ahead of his inauguration, they'll undoubtedly go through a period of adjustment. The girls will need to get used to a new school, the whole family will learn soon enough about the city's muggy summers, and Obama himself may need to become a hockey fan because the other local sports teams currently range from mediocre to stupendously bad."

You don't have to be an expert to believe that the Nats will get better this season, because it simply would be hard to get much worse. I'm old enough to remember 56-106 in '63, and the motto for the next season was (I'm not making this up): "Off the Floor in '64'' -- the Senators made it, barely, by finishing 9th, but they still lost 100 games for the fourth year in a row. What a thrill it was.

Hoo, hoo, hoo.We've got heart!
Miles and miles and miles of heart!
Oh it's fine to be a genius of course, but keep that old horse before the cart!
:
So what the heck's the use of cryin'?
Why should we curse?
We've got to get better......'cause we can't get worse!
And to add to it; we've got heart We've got heart! We've got Heart!